The ‘groundbreaking’ musical bookends of Series 9
It’s been four years since Series 9 ended, and I only just now realized the significance of the musical “bookends” this season had.
Of course we remember how Twelve entered the medieval arena in “The Magician’s Apprentice” while shredding on his guitar:
And there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when the series ended with Twelve playing as Clara reluctantly left him in “Hell Bent”:
The fact the season began and ended (at least for the Doctor) with him playing guitar is not the “news” here. It’s what he was playing in the two scenes that makes them “groundbreaking musical bookends.”
As we all know, in Hell Bent, the Doctor is playing Clara’s theme, bringing that piece of music into the actual canon by revealing that he composed it. I’ve often said that this marked the first time that a piece of music associated with a Doctor Who character had been made, as they say, diegetic - existing in the fictional world. But turns out I forgot one.
Because, when Twelve first arrives on the tank in Magician’s Apprentice - before be serenades Clara with the opening bars of Oh Pretty Woman - he is playing his own theme song.
Yes, it is almost unrecognizable. And I had heard before that Twelve was playing the Doctor Who theme. The Radio Times even confirmed it. So that’s far from new “news,” either. But I only just realized that the series began and ended with the two lead characters’ musical leitmotifs being taken out of the “real world” and into the fictional world of the show.
Nothing earth-shattering, but it’s a nice bit of symmetry that, if it was intended and not, as Bob Ross would call it, a “happy little accident,” suggests some pretty impressive planning by Moffat & Co.
